CINEMA
The Proud Ones. (Curzon.)—Knock on Wood. (Plaza.)—The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. (Studio One.) The Proud Ones has been adapted for the screen by Yves Allegret from a novel by Jean-Paul Sartre. It takes place in Mexico, a country which invariably stimulates directors to give of their best, and M. Allegret has followed faithfully in the tradition, giving us a film technically, artistically and certainly atmospherically magnificent. Michele Morgan arrives by bus in a small harbour village with her husband who has been taken sick. The local doctor refuses to allow them to con- tinue their journey, suspecting some con- tagious disease. In the terrible heat and dirt and noise the husband dies of spotted fever, and Mlle. Morgan is left, quarantined and penniless, eventually to fall in love with a drunk ex-doctor, Gerard Philipe. M. Allegret spares us no detail of the night- marish quality of the first twenty-four hours of his heroine's ordeal; indeed each detail, the post office pen which will not write, the electric fan which will not work, the spinal injection, the cockroach, is held and mpgni- fied until one's nerves vibrate. with hch For and one longs, yearns, thirsts to get away from the place. Never have heat, squalor and despair been so overpoweringly pro- duced on any screen, and were it not for the implausibility of the story's ending—a reformed M. Philipe running across golden sands from an isolation hospital hut into the arms of his beloved—one could forget one was in a cinema and vicariously experi- ence every one of this Mexican hell-hole's
shortcomings. •
Although the blurbs announce that Danny Kaye is at his Kaye-Raziest in Knock on Wood, in point of fact he is, for him, fairly sane and also extremely funny. Though at first supposed to be a schizophrenic and at last mistaken for a killer, the gibbering maniacal side of his talent has been shelved completely and he appears at all times comprehensible, charming and, as a character actor, unsurpassed. During the com- plexities of the plot, which is concerned with ventriloquists' dummies, blue prints and enemy agents, Mr. Kaye gives a sketch which is worthy of an Oscar all to itself, that of an Englishman buying a car, and his song with a gathering of Irish in a pub, not to mention his dance with a Russian ballet, proves once again his versatility in the field of mimicry. Mai Zetterling, who for some reason was torn from the arms of Melpomene to play opposite him, does, of course, do all that she should do with ease, but the demands glade on her gifts are of such modest pro- portions one feels that any of the thousand and one Hollywood blondes would have tackled the role admirably. Most of the film takes place in London and it is directed with verve and assurance by Messrs. Panama and Frank who have concocted a number of humorous ideas which, with Mr. Kayo's uncanny assistance, they have exploited a Inerveille.
• For fantasy The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T takes a great many buns. It describes the dreams of a small boy, Tommy Rettig, who does not want to learn to play the piano, and although at moments this extravaganza has a Disney-esque charm—or perhaps I should say Seuss-ish, for it was made by the American cartoonist Dr. Seuss—on the whole it is more fey than gay, a little too whimsical and just a bit bogus.
VIRGINIA GRAHAM
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